Summary: "The look in her eyes… It's like she wanted me to do it." The doctor suspects that all is not as it seems with his latest patient, and his knife falters… AU ending.

Disclaimer: I own nought but the very persistent little plot bunny.

Note: I watched Sucker Punch for the first time last night and I was immediately struck by this idea. Just a way in which things could have gone a little differently. Also note that I wrote this before I saw the deleted scene with Babydoll and the High Roller. (I didn't even know that such a scene existed until I was looking up quotes on IMDB and found a load from the High Roller that I didn't remember hearing in the film. Having since tracked it down on YT, I now feel that the ending makes a lot more sense. Why did they cut that scene? I might not have stayed up till two in the morning writing this if they hadn't!)

Switches between the point of view of Babydoll in the brothel and the doctor in the asylum.

The Look

She's given herself up, resigned herself to what is required and expected of her. She comes quietly, CJ and Danforth one either side of her, marching her along towards her destiny. It doesn't matter now. None of it matters, because Sweet Pea is safe and that was all that ever mattered in the first place, even if it has taken her until now to see it.

They take her into one of the rooms and sit her down on the bed, looking almost bewildered, as if they don't know what to do with either themselves or her. Perhaps they keep expecting her to make a break for it.

"He'll be here soon," says CJ. "Don't move."

She has no intention of moving. There's no point to it now. She remains motionless, outwardly as calm as can be but in spite of it all…

CJ and Danforth leave and the click of the key turning in the lock breaks her train of thought momentarily.

…in spite of it all, in spite of knowing and accepting what is to come next, she is scared. Now, after having been so brave and strong for so long, she is scared, because she does not need to be brave and strong now that it is so nearly over. The point of no return is approaching fast.

He does not like performing this procedure for it always brings with it a sense of failure. All other methods have been tried and have failed. They, the professionals, have failed in their profession. But, he resigns himself to it. There is no other way and if the girl is a danger to herself and others then there is nothing more that can be done for her, and this is best for everyone. At least, that is what he keeps telling himself.

He enters the infirmary, sets down his tools, removes his coat. He looks at the girl in the chair – not too closely just yet – and sees that although her ankles are strapped, she does not appear to show any kind of resistance. It's as if she has resigned herself to her fate, to what is required of her now. He pulls the curtain around the chair and sets to work, examining the papers, checking the signatures are in order. Presently he looks up and catches her eye.

The door unlocks and the High Roller enters. For a moment he appears to be wearing spectacles and checked suspenders but it is only the way the light falls in the room. He sets down his glass, removes his jacket. She bites her tongue and the momentary pain gives her something to concentrate on besides her fear and the impending act. She thinks of Sweet Pea and imagines her progress away from the club.

The High Roller looks her up and down, appraising his purchase.

"So you're the Babydoll."

She nods, her teeth still clamped tightly down on her tongue. He smiles, and it is such a genuine smile that for a moment she allows her jaw to relax. She tastes blood in her mouth as her tongue moves freely once more. He sits beside her.

"Don't be nervous," he says, eyeing her tensed form. "There is nothing to be nervous of. A little pain at first, but it will soon subside to something far more… pleasurable."

His voice lowers and becomes husky, as if he's sliding into a new persona, from keeping a clinical distance to being startlingly close and intimate.

"Shall we begin?"

She wants to speak, she wants to move, but she feels as if rigor mortis has set in and she can only move in the degrees it leaves her. A strand of hair falls into her face and the High Roller pushes it away when her hands refuse to unfreeze from their clutching the satin into crumpled fistfuls. He kisses her, gently, but there is the obviously restrained force of a want barely suppressed. A part of her wants to ask him what it will be like; to confide in him her fear and ignorance, after all, he knows he has bought a virgin. It is not such a stupid question, and from the look in his eyes he seems, against all odds, like a man to be trusted, not like the priest, not like Blue. In a second of idle fancy she thinks that perhaps he could be a doctor in another life. She shakes her head at the notion. The High Roller arches an eyebrow at her gesture but she gives him a brief smile – for her own reassurance far more than his. He is in the position of power, and from the accounts of the other girls he has done this thousands of times before. He kisses her again, this time more forceful in his ministrations although still not unkind, and she can taste the alcohol on his tongue. It burns her own.

"Relax," he says. "It will be so much easier if you relax. Trust me."

And so she trusts him, because she has no other choice, because she was not the one destined to escape, because this is her fate. Movement finally returns, her joints unlock and she lets him take her hands, pull her to her feet and begin to remove her clothes.

Preliminaries over, he looks once more at the girl as he takes the knife and mallet, finding the correct angle to penetrate her skull but still leave her able to function as best any lobotomy patient can. He pauses for a moment, adjusts his grip on the knife, and meets her eyes. She seems to be far away, somewhere else entirely, but in their grey-brown depths he thinks he sees something that he has never seen in any of his other patients, any of the other lost causes whose conscious miseries he has cut short in this way. The knife falters, because the look in her eyes… It's as if she wants him to do it. She knows what is about to come and she is scared accordingly – that much is clear from the tension she is still displaying despite no longer gripping the chair arms with enough force to prise off her fingernails – but she wants him to do it. He is sure that this girl is, unlike any of the other patients he has performed this procedure on, if not sane, certainly not in a position to warrant a lobotomy. His hand shifts and he loses his precious angle. The look is still there in her eyes, mocking him almost, pleading with him to get the dreaded deed over and done with, to put an end to her fear and her inescapable state. He draws back the curtain, goes to the door of the infirmary and the orderlies there.

"Find me Doctor Gorski."

It is almost time. It is almost over. Soon the deed will be done and then… She does not know what will happen then. No-one ever really mentioned what happens after the High Roller has had his way with her. Will she just be stuck here, part of the show, or will she be of no use now that her most prized feature is ruined? As Madame Gorski says, there is no place at the club for those with no purpose.

She lies naked on the bed and he is equally bare on top of her. She trusts him with the same trust one gives a surgeon, but the fear of the unknown can only be vanquished with the unknown itself, just as the fear of undergoing the operation is only dissipated once it is over.

He raises himself on one elbow slightly and looks into her face – involuntarily flushed. But as their eyes meet, his brow furrows in confusion and a lump comes to her throat. She is aware that something is wrong but she has no idea what. All she wants is for this to be over, for an end to fear and dread anticipation, for a completion to the process that was started as soon as she arrived. As his dark eyes continue to search hers, she blinks…

For a split second she is surrounded by sterile white tiles and cold steel, a knife almost touching her face and a familiar, confused face above it.

… and then she is back in the club. The High Roller moves off her. He sits on the edge of the bed, lost in thought, before he jumps up, dresses enough to make himself decent and pulls the top sheet up over her to preserve her own decorum, not that her costumes ever really afforded her much to start with. He knocks on the door and speaks to CJ and Danforth, who are still outside.

"Find me Madame Gorski."

She feels slightly nervous; the fear is heightened by the unexpected delay. She wonders what is wrong and sits up, hugging her knees beneath the sheet.

Doctor Gorski arrives and he gestures towards his patient, speaking in low tones so that the girl in question doesn't hear them.

"I know that you do not pay me for my opinion, Doctor, but there's something very strange about this one."

"She has been one of our most troubling cases, certainly. Within five days, she has set the place on fire, stabbed an orderly and helped another patient to escape."

He sighs, she's obviously more unstable than he thought but he still cannot shake off the look in her eyes.

"All the same, Doctor Gorski, I've seen a lot of hopeless cases but never anything like this. If I may venture to say so, I really do not agree that this is the best solution."

"No, neither do I."

He looks at her, confused.

"So why did you authorise it?"

The doctor's expression moves swiftly from perplexity to horror and she grabs the papers from him.

"I didn't… I never… I did not sign this." The horror becomes anger. "Jones," she spits, and leaves the room at a run.

He picks up the fallen papers, relieved that intuition was proved correct and he stopped before the point of no return, that the girl's situation did not become irretrievable. He looks back at her, and sees that she still wears the same mask of resigned calm over an expression of fear. He goes over to her, crouching in front of her and taking her hand.

"It's alright, nothing to fear. Nothing's going to happen to you. You're safe."

Madame Gorski leaves the room, cursing Blue; she could not hear what passed between them but her fears are lessened slightly. The High Roller returns, taking her hand through the satin and reassuring her that she is safe, that he is not going to do anything to her…

And in that moment, he looks less like a high roller and more like a doctor, with spectacles and checked suspenders, and the club around them begins to fade away, because she has no need of it anymore, because she no longer has any fear, because she has achieved what she had to achieve, because Sweet Pea is safe, and because the look in the doctor's eyes tells her that she too is safe, and that everything will be fine.

Fin